


All the Birds in the Sky

by lambient



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Read at Your Own Risk, and yeah woo, dark-hermione, i'm garbage so naturally this will be garbage, time-travel fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 19:25:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lambient/pseuds/lambient
Summary: Time travel is a tricky thing, even more so when it’s an accident.An au in which tacky tropes are met head on but unfortunately not avoided“What, you think you know more than me?”“I know, I know more than you.”





	All the Birds in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> I will make no fronts here, as I feel I must be completely honest. I am in no way informed on anything, like at all. Therefore, this fanfiction might be the worst thing you’ve ever read. In that, characters could be ooc, cannon information could easily be discarded in lieu of nonsense. I might not update for twelve years, and I am increasingly losing all ability or motivation to write. That being said, I would like it to also be known, I am writing this purely for my own enjoyment. If you dare take this roller-coaster ride of nonsensical bullshit filtered in with things I’ve read in other fanfictions then sure, proceed. Oh, that brings up another thing, I read loads, I mean loads of Tomione fanfiction therefore if something sounds or feels familiar that could probably be why. Not that it would be intentional of course, and if you do notice something it would be very small because I am in no way trying to copy or steal someone else’s story. 
> 
> (Also I don’t own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does.)
> 
> Now that all the formalities are out of the way, let’s begin.

The Battle of Hogwarts is over and we’ve won. We’ve won – 

Then why does it feel like we haven’t? Like everything we’ve done was in preparation for the fight of our lives and now that it’s over and there isn’t anything here we’re all just existing. Not living, not surviving, but existing. Walking around in skin that’s literally rotting before us. Maybe it’s because I’m standing covered in soot and ash and blood in the ruins of a home that isn’t mine anymore. That could never be mine anymore. Ruins that are just that, ruined. 

Destroyed because it was so easy, and we were what, children? Children fighting for our lives and our home because it had to be the right thing to do. It had to be the right thing because if it wasn’t that would mean this was all for nothing. All of it, everyone who died, everyone who lived but their minds can’t ever leave the battlefield. Trapped and surrounded by perpetual darkness, and screaming, and hate, and agony. 

They aren’t rebuilding Hogwarts, they want us to keep it as a memento. Like we could forget, like any one of us could forget that students died here because power is addicting and boys who turned into men too quickly couldn’t get enough of it.

I wish I could say I didn’t understand it, that I could never bring myself to understand how someone could enjoy killing. But I’ve done it, I’ve done it not because I wanted to but because I had to and even then, god, even then I felt powerful. It wasn’t their bones cracking, no breaking beneath my touch that seduced me. It wasn’t their screams, and how eventually their voices gave out. So horrendously quickly. How weak willed they were, how easy it was when they weren’t expecting it. How it was just like blowing out a candle. 

It was the power, and at the end of the day that is always what it comes back to. Power. Pure power and once you’ve felt it enough, yearned for it for so long. Wished on stars that spanned decades of wrong doing. You’d do anything for it, you’d lose your mind, lose your sanity or good looks. You’d gain power at whatever the cost, be that by fear, or admiration. All the same, even better if they flinched at your gaze. 

I hate myself, I’ve survived and so did Harry and Ron and everyone important to me. I got the job I’ve wanted, fame and it’s all perfect. Or it would be, and I could almost be content with it. Almost. But I hate myself, because I can’t tell if my nightmares are nightmares or if they’re dreams, or if I miss Hogwarts or if I just miss watching it burn. 

I hate myself so horrendously that I have clawed at my skin just to get out of it, I’ve bled for a way out. It never works though. It never works and something has got to change, because I feel myself losing my mind. 

Which is why I’m standing amid ruins staring into a mirror that doesn’t tell the truth, hold the future, but shows you exactly what you want. I must know, I must know if I’m unfixable. If this darkness is as bad as I think it is, or if I can be saved. If who I was could ever be who I am again. 

I think I know the answer before I ever thought about going back to Hogwarts, before I even found the stupid broken mirror. Before all of this, I think I know, and I’m so scared. 

The mirror isn’t working, or maybe it’s working so perfectly, and I’m exactly who I thought I was. I’m looking in the mirror but I’m not seeing myself, that can’t be me. It isn’t. 

She may look like me, and she may have the same untamable bushy hair tied back with an old shoe lace, but she can’t be me. Because she’s covered in blood and she’s smiling and she looks so smug. Like everything she’s done was for this, for this one moment of rage and bloodshed and hurt and I can only look at her for a few seconds before I get sick. 

It’s disorienting. All of it. 

It’s not me


End file.
